Sorry for the delays in updating the blog. Incredibly busy and little free time are barely sufficient to describe the workload down here lately. The following post was actually typed up October 13th and I'm just now getting to putting it up. Much has happened since then, but I'll save that for a day when I have time again.
The C-17 just took off and left with a piece of me on it.
The last of our winterovers have departed. I was saddened to see them go.
With hugs, handshakes, and waves I watched them get on the airporter for a ride to freedom and a land with humidity, relative warmth, and smells. It’s been a long fourteen months for most of them, and I’m sure they’ll be happy wherever they end up so long as it’s warm.
Bidding my farewells to them, I managed to avoid using the “G” word. For people who drift as much as the nomadic Ice people, it’s almost a certainty that our paths will cross again someday.
I seriously hope they do.
For those in the Pacific Northwest, I don’t foresee any problems with this. For those from different directions, we may just meet a little further down the road.
The Maineiac suggested having me tag along on a future driving trip across Africa. She figures I’d come in handy when the Land Rover breaks down. I’m going to try and hold her to it. I think driving through a war-torn country or two could be interesting.
131 days to go.
The Maineiac also left me with one last piece of advice before she got on the airporter.
She told me to appreciate this place.
It has been tough doing that lately. I’ve become a little jaded as to how things work (or more often how they don’t) down here. I’ve been working a lot of extra hours, working a side job, and volunteering for other activities. I’ve started to forget why I really came down here, and hopefully this jars it back into perspective for me. I see some of the most incredible things in the world, but it gets hard to see that when you’re staring at a computer screen looking at a list of broken trucks.
This is a beautiful place. Stunning, in fact, provided you actually take a moment to look at it.
We’re still in the season of the perpetual sunrise/sunset. The sun sits low enough in the sky that as it circles around town you can see the sky burn with brilliant color. On a clear day, it’s enough for people to stop what they’re doing for a minute and just stare. It’s still amazing.
There’s a popular saying down here: “The first season you come for the experience, the second you come for the money, and after that you come back just because you don’t fit in anywhere else anymore.”
For the most part, this saying is fairly true. Now I’m remembering it’s not all about the money this time. It’s still about the experience and the people.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Boomerang
It’s been a while since I’ve updated this last. To you dedicated readers out there who love to keep up with my Antarctic antics, I’ll be trying to do better.
In my defense, however, I have not had a full day off in about three weeks. Time has been flying here and we’ve been staying exceptionally busy due to short staffing, flights, and continuing repairs on apparatus. I’ve been spending many of my off days working on broken trucks so far this season, leaving me with little time to write.
How am I writing now, you ask? It’s actually a very simple answer. I’m sitting in Red 1, one of our giant articulated and tracked Chieftains waiting for an Airbus to land with the second official flight of Mainbody.
It looks like I still have another hour to kill before the Airbus actually arrives, so I’ll do my best to fill you in on the happenings down here.
Firstly, I have taken a part time job and entered into the proud ranks of Antarctic Mixologists. I worked my first shift as a bartender at Gallagher’s Pub the other night managing not only to mix drinks, but also to have a zero balance on the till at the end of the night. Considering my historically horrendous math skills, I was pretty happy about this. I’m looking forward to work my first mainbody shift in a couple of weeks. It should be busy and profitable.
One of the other activities that I’ve stumbled into is becoming a Nodwell driver for the Recreation Department. This means that I get to go on a lot of trips to a lot of places that I wouldn’t normally see since I’m one of two Nodwell operators on station so far this season.
In case you were wondering, a Nodwell is another product of Canadian Foremost and is similar to the Chieftains in many respects. It is a smaller vehicle and is not articulated. The easiest description of a Nodwell is nothing more than a tank with just a cab on the front of it. The Nodwell being used by Rec actually used to be one of our crash trucks. We officially retired it at the end of last season expecting it to be shipped off continent when the M/V American Tern departed. Rec, seeing an opportunity, quickly snagged it before it was loaded on. Shortly thereafter, a large passenger box was mounted on the back of it. Now, it is unofficially known as RecNod 3.
It’s actually a lot of fun to drive and does not handle badly at all. It took a bit to get used to driving with two sticks instead of a wheel, but now I can do it with ease. I’m looking forward to many excursions this season. I’ll see if I can’t get some pictures of it up shortly.
Mainbody is officially here. They touched down two days ago now. It was fun to see some old friends again, but also very unnerving seeing all these people invading our tight, close knit community. I’ve had a great time at winfly, meeting lots of new people from many departments. This is a marked improvement over last season where I barely knew anyone outside of the firehouse. I’m hoping to keep this pace up, but we’ll see. We’re supposed to be seriously over capacity this season with people, so we’ll see how this works out. I suspect I’ll be wishing that mainbody had never come shortly.
The weather here has been exceptionally nice lately. We had a con 2 storm blow through right before the first flight of mainbody hit and it brought a lot of warm air with it. We’ve been used to sitting around in -20F to -30F temperatures lately, but the storm brought some +10F air with it which felt absolutely balmy. Aside from the fact that you were getting blasted with blowing snow, it was actually nice enough to be outside with just a sweatshirt.
If the above statement makes you think I’m a little crazy, you’re partly right. First of all, nobody that’s completely sane comes here; especially for a second time. Secondly, the ability of the human body to adapt to extreme conditions is remarkable. My body essentially turns into a human space heater. While that does keep you warm while properly dressed, it doesn’t make you invincible.
Case in point, we were out pump testing the Chieftains the other day (with success) and I managed to acquire some frost nip on my toes. Luckily, I caught it early enough to prevent frostbite, but it wasn’t much fun. I think it was only about -20F that day and we weren’t even outside that long.
Wow. The weather just turned. Less than ten minutes ago I had a decent view of the Royal Society Range in the distance, now they’ve completely vanished and Ice Town (about 150 yards away) is starting to look fuzzy out the windshield. They’re trying to make the decision whether or not to land the plane right now.
The Airbus is about to hit its point of safe return, so this is the definitive moment of the flight. If the pilot decides the visibility isn’t good enough, they’ll boomerang and take their passengers all the way back to Cheech for another night. That makes for a long, ten hour flight day for the passengers…
They’ve boomeraged. Time to go home now. Cheers to you all, and hopefully I’ll get another update posted shortly.
Signing off from Red 1…
In my defense, however, I have not had a full day off in about three weeks. Time has been flying here and we’ve been staying exceptionally busy due to short staffing, flights, and continuing repairs on apparatus. I’ve been spending many of my off days working on broken trucks so far this season, leaving me with little time to write.
How am I writing now, you ask? It’s actually a very simple answer. I’m sitting in Red 1, one of our giant articulated and tracked Chieftains waiting for an Airbus to land with the second official flight of Mainbody.
It looks like I still have another hour to kill before the Airbus actually arrives, so I’ll do my best to fill you in on the happenings down here.
Firstly, I have taken a part time job and entered into the proud ranks of Antarctic Mixologists. I worked my first shift as a bartender at Gallagher’s Pub the other night managing not only to mix drinks, but also to have a zero balance on the till at the end of the night. Considering my historically horrendous math skills, I was pretty happy about this. I’m looking forward to work my first mainbody shift in a couple of weeks. It should be busy and profitable.
One of the other activities that I’ve stumbled into is becoming a Nodwell driver for the Recreation Department. This means that I get to go on a lot of trips to a lot of places that I wouldn’t normally see since I’m one of two Nodwell operators on station so far this season.
In case you were wondering, a Nodwell is another product of Canadian Foremost and is similar to the Chieftains in many respects. It is a smaller vehicle and is not articulated. The easiest description of a Nodwell is nothing more than a tank with just a cab on the front of it. The Nodwell being used by Rec actually used to be one of our crash trucks. We officially retired it at the end of last season expecting it to be shipped off continent when the M/V American Tern departed. Rec, seeing an opportunity, quickly snagged it before it was loaded on. Shortly thereafter, a large passenger box was mounted on the back of it. Now, it is unofficially known as RecNod 3.
It’s actually a lot of fun to drive and does not handle badly at all. It took a bit to get used to driving with two sticks instead of a wheel, but now I can do it with ease. I’m looking forward to many excursions this season. I’ll see if I can’t get some pictures of it up shortly.
Mainbody is officially here. They touched down two days ago now. It was fun to see some old friends again, but also very unnerving seeing all these people invading our tight, close knit community. I’ve had a great time at winfly, meeting lots of new people from many departments. This is a marked improvement over last season where I barely knew anyone outside of the firehouse. I’m hoping to keep this pace up, but we’ll see. We’re supposed to be seriously over capacity this season with people, so we’ll see how this works out. I suspect I’ll be wishing that mainbody had never come shortly.
The weather here has been exceptionally nice lately. We had a con 2 storm blow through right before the first flight of mainbody hit and it brought a lot of warm air with it. We’ve been used to sitting around in -20F to -30F temperatures lately, but the storm brought some +10F air with it which felt absolutely balmy. Aside from the fact that you were getting blasted with blowing snow, it was actually nice enough to be outside with just a sweatshirt.
If the above statement makes you think I’m a little crazy, you’re partly right. First of all, nobody that’s completely sane comes here; especially for a second time. Secondly, the ability of the human body to adapt to extreme conditions is remarkable. My body essentially turns into a human space heater. While that does keep you warm while properly dressed, it doesn’t make you invincible.
Case in point, we were out pump testing the Chieftains the other day (with success) and I managed to acquire some frost nip on my toes. Luckily, I caught it early enough to prevent frostbite, but it wasn’t much fun. I think it was only about -20F that day and we weren’t even outside that long.
Wow. The weather just turned. Less than ten minutes ago I had a decent view of the Royal Society Range in the distance, now they’ve completely vanished and Ice Town (about 150 yards away) is starting to look fuzzy out the windshield. They’re trying to make the decision whether or not to land the plane right now.
The Airbus is about to hit its point of safe return, so this is the definitive moment of the flight. If the pilot decides the visibility isn’t good enough, they’ll boomerang and take their passengers all the way back to Cheech for another night. That makes for a long, ten hour flight day for the passengers…
They’ve boomeraged. Time to go home now. Cheers to you all, and hopefully I’ll get another update posted shortly.
Signing off from Red 1…
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Is it Cookie Day Yet?
Frostnip, Purple K, foam parties, rugby, aborted medevacs, auroras and nacreous clouds.
It's been a busy week. Or two. Or...more? I don't really know at this point. Time is really starting to blur right now. We've been working a lot of extra hours lately for many of the above reasons.
I'll try to explain them as best I can, one by one. Savvy? Sweet as.
To begin, I'll start with the frostnip. For those of you in a warmer place than here, frostnip is an early, reversible, stage of frostbite. It is in no way fun and it will sneak up on you without realizing it.
Continuing, we happened to be out at work one blustery day. We had just completed a few inspections and the weather was starting to turn bad again, which is not an uncommon occurrence here this time of year. (Bad weather here comes up fast, like a summer thunderstorm back home, and can last for days.)
Anyway, I was driving the engine, and we needed to get fuel before returning to quarters. So, a short drive over to the gasboys later I hopped out of my nice warm cab to add fuel.
I wasn't even outside for five minutes. The diesel pumps are pretty quick, and I only put in 16 gallons. I stood there suffering with my back to the wind (face uncovered but turned away from the wind with my collar up) until the pump finally stopped. I jumped back in the cab, and the first thing I hear is my lieutenant telling me that my nose is completely white, a clear indication of frostnip. After I let loose a few less than pleasant words about myself being less than genius that day, we went back home.
I got lucky, though. Since I never got the pins and needles feeling that comes with rewarming the affected area, it wasn't full thickness. My nose will probably peel some later, but it has come back just fine.
Lesson learned, I promptly went to the ship's store and purchased a nice, warm, and windproof face mask. It's been seeing a lot of use.
How cold was it, you ask? Probably hovering somewhere around -30F with windchills in the range of -80F.
Moving on, I'll explain about the foam party and purple k experience.
As I believe I mentioned earlier, we've been having issues with some of our crash trucks. These are unique, one-off systems that are largely untested due to the hazardous materials issues that arise when we discharge agent. However, due to some issues that arose with a truck fire we had a couple of weeks ago, we've been tearing down these systems and inspecting them for issues.
Without going into complicated mechanical details, I'll just say that certain important parts have a tendency to stick in the wrong position, causing problems (and resultant foam parties). Unfortunately for us, we're learning all of this the hard way.
The first time we learned this, we were just coming back into the firehouse after doing some inspections. I was backing the engine up, and the Kiwi kept telling me to stop. After the second time, I was left wondering what the hold up was until he came up and told me that Red 4 had discharged from the turret.
Several loud, less than polite terms were then made audible from myself.
It turned out that while our new mechanic and a lieutenant were working on the system, something stuck in the wrong position. Unfortunately for us, that something caused several hundred gallons of finished foam to spew across the bays, leaving us a mess to clean up.
Two hours, six people, a few pictures, shovels and mops later, we had finally cleaned up the mess. Pleased we were not, but we were done.
Proceed 24 hours later. Then repeat this entire process when something else failed in a similar fashion. It proceeded to dump the rest of the 300 gallon foam tank onto the floor, though with some quick action, they were able to save about two 55 gallon drums of foam concentrate after a quick shutdown. Luckily for me, B shift was on, so I just had the pleasure of hearing about it at dinner.
Fast forward another 48 hours. I'm on my Kelly day (my extra day off every two weeks) and bored. So, I offer to come in to help with the mechanical demon of a truck sitting in the bay. This time we're not testing the foam system, which I was happy about, since it has had a less than spectacular track record in the previous week.
This time, we're testing the Purple K system. Purple K is a special fire extinguishing dry chemical powder often used in airport firefighting equipment. When used in conjunction with foam, it delivers a great one-two punch to fire. We use a slightly different type of Purple K that has an extremely bright and vivid purple dye added to be better able to see it in a fire situation.
Now, the Purple K system has not really had a history of issues. It's an older design that's been used for years in places around the world. Ansul has refined it into a system that we can even trust down in the frozen south. Unfortunately for us, however, we forgot that part of it runs through the other half of the system...
After a successful test of the turret operation by shooting the Purple K into a containment barrel and blowing it down (blowing down removes any leftover agent sitting in the lines) with only the normal mess, we were pleased to conclude the test a success. Thus deemed, I moved the containment barrel to the back so we could test the hand line.
Moving into position, the lieutenant I was working with flipped the switch to begin the hand line test. Upon this activation, the gurgling, whooshing, coughing sound unique to the turret was heard. Knowing doom was impending, he quickly shut the system back down. Unfortunately for us, once the system is charged, it has more than enough air flowing through to make a mess.
Looking forward to the turret, it coughed, hacked, and proceeded to puke a large, brilliant purple cloud. Within five seconds, the back half of the bay was a lovely shade of violet.
Much sweeping and mopping followed. We'll be finding more purple for weeks to come.
While we've been receiving the short end of the stick with these trucks lately, our daytime dispatcher has had the pleasure of seeing each of these events through her office window and not having to be involved with the cleanup.
I would've liked to have seen the jet of foam shooting across of the wave of purple that drifted by her window...
Rugby. This one is a short explanation. We watched the New Zealand All Blacks play the other day. They were up against the Wallabies of Australia in the final Tri-Nations game of the season. While the first half was disappointing, the stunning come from behind victory by the All Blacks was worth it. This win marked their tenth straight and they left as Tri-Nations champs (though they actually won this honor after their last match).
Auroras and nacreous clouds. I'll make this one short, too.
They are incredible.
Not much of an amazing story behind it, but I think you'll appreciate it better if I ever download my pictures.
So we have a medevac flight that's supposed to come down. It tried to come down yesterday, but failed due to rapidly deteriorating conditions out at Pegasus. I had an opportunity to read the Terminal Area Forecast for it, and it was amazing to see how fast the weather went from flyable conditions to horrible conditions. I think it was less than five minutes that made the difference.
Luckily I got to stay in town for the attempt yesterday. Red 4 decided it would be fun to puke glycol again, and made about a hundred yard mess behind itself. This is actually better than the typical half mile mess we end up with, but I still felt bad for the guys that had to go out and shovel it up. I know at least one of our guys came back with a little frostnip from it, though he'll be fine.
They tried to get the flight back in here today, but they canceled it very early on, for which I was appreciative, though I'm pretty sure the poor guy sitting in medical thinks differently.
We're trying again tomorrow. The forecast is supposed to be a bit nicer. I won't get to enjoy driving out to Pegasus and back, though. I'll be at sea ice training most of the day, a welcome escape of a two hour commute in a lumbering Chieftain.
That's about all I have for right now. I guess I'll fill you all in on my sea ice adventures later if I don't freeze to death first. In the mean time, I think I'll start putting together some ideas for my post-Ice travels.
It's been a busy week. Or two. Or...more? I don't really know at this point. Time is really starting to blur right now. We've been working a lot of extra hours lately for many of the above reasons.
I'll try to explain them as best I can, one by one. Savvy? Sweet as.
To begin, I'll start with the frostnip. For those of you in a warmer place than here, frostnip is an early, reversible, stage of frostbite. It is in no way fun and it will sneak up on you without realizing it.
Continuing, we happened to be out at work one blustery day. We had just completed a few inspections and the weather was starting to turn bad again, which is not an uncommon occurrence here this time of year. (Bad weather here comes up fast, like a summer thunderstorm back home, and can last for days.)
Anyway, I was driving the engine, and we needed to get fuel before returning to quarters. So, a short drive over to the gasboys later I hopped out of my nice warm cab to add fuel.
I wasn't even outside for five minutes. The diesel pumps are pretty quick, and I only put in 16 gallons. I stood there suffering with my back to the wind (face uncovered but turned away from the wind with my collar up) until the pump finally stopped. I jumped back in the cab, and the first thing I hear is my lieutenant telling me that my nose is completely white, a clear indication of frostnip. After I let loose a few less than pleasant words about myself being less than genius that day, we went back home.
I got lucky, though. Since I never got the pins and needles feeling that comes with rewarming the affected area, it wasn't full thickness. My nose will probably peel some later, but it has come back just fine.
Lesson learned, I promptly went to the ship's store and purchased a nice, warm, and windproof face mask. It's been seeing a lot of use.
How cold was it, you ask? Probably hovering somewhere around -30F with windchills in the range of -80F.
Moving on, I'll explain about the foam party and purple k experience.
As I believe I mentioned earlier, we've been having issues with some of our crash trucks. These are unique, one-off systems that are largely untested due to the hazardous materials issues that arise when we discharge agent. However, due to some issues that arose with a truck fire we had a couple of weeks ago, we've been tearing down these systems and inspecting them for issues.
Without going into complicated mechanical details, I'll just say that certain important parts have a tendency to stick in the wrong position, causing problems (and resultant foam parties). Unfortunately for us, we're learning all of this the hard way.
The first time we learned this, we were just coming back into the firehouse after doing some inspections. I was backing the engine up, and the Kiwi kept telling me to stop. After the second time, I was left wondering what the hold up was until he came up and told me that Red 4 had discharged from the turret.
Several loud, less than polite terms were then made audible from myself.
It turned out that while our new mechanic and a lieutenant were working on the system, something stuck in the wrong position. Unfortunately for us, that something caused several hundred gallons of finished foam to spew across the bays, leaving us a mess to clean up.
Two hours, six people, a few pictures, shovels and mops later, we had finally cleaned up the mess. Pleased we were not, but we were done.
Proceed 24 hours later. Then repeat this entire process when something else failed in a similar fashion. It proceeded to dump the rest of the 300 gallon foam tank onto the floor, though with some quick action, they were able to save about two 55 gallon drums of foam concentrate after a quick shutdown. Luckily for me, B shift was on, so I just had the pleasure of hearing about it at dinner.
Fast forward another 48 hours. I'm on my Kelly day (my extra day off every two weeks) and bored. So, I offer to come in to help with the mechanical demon of a truck sitting in the bay. This time we're not testing the foam system, which I was happy about, since it has had a less than spectacular track record in the previous week.
This time, we're testing the Purple K system. Purple K is a special fire extinguishing dry chemical powder often used in airport firefighting equipment. When used in conjunction with foam, it delivers a great one-two punch to fire. We use a slightly different type of Purple K that has an extremely bright and vivid purple dye added to be better able to see it in a fire situation.
Now, the Purple K system has not really had a history of issues. It's an older design that's been used for years in places around the world. Ansul has refined it into a system that we can even trust down in the frozen south. Unfortunately for us, however, we forgot that part of it runs through the other half of the system...
After a successful test of the turret operation by shooting the Purple K into a containment barrel and blowing it down (blowing down removes any leftover agent sitting in the lines) with only the normal mess, we were pleased to conclude the test a success. Thus deemed, I moved the containment barrel to the back so we could test the hand line.
Moving into position, the lieutenant I was working with flipped the switch to begin the hand line test. Upon this activation, the gurgling, whooshing, coughing sound unique to the turret was heard. Knowing doom was impending, he quickly shut the system back down. Unfortunately for us, once the system is charged, it has more than enough air flowing through to make a mess.
Looking forward to the turret, it coughed, hacked, and proceeded to puke a large, brilliant purple cloud. Within five seconds, the back half of the bay was a lovely shade of violet.
Much sweeping and mopping followed. We'll be finding more purple for weeks to come.
While we've been receiving the short end of the stick with these trucks lately, our daytime dispatcher has had the pleasure of seeing each of these events through her office window and not having to be involved with the cleanup.
I would've liked to have seen the jet of foam shooting across of the wave of purple that drifted by her window...
Rugby. This one is a short explanation. We watched the New Zealand All Blacks play the other day. They were up against the Wallabies of Australia in the final Tri-Nations game of the season. While the first half was disappointing, the stunning come from behind victory by the All Blacks was worth it. This win marked their tenth straight and they left as Tri-Nations champs (though they actually won this honor after their last match).
Auroras and nacreous clouds. I'll make this one short, too.
They are incredible.
Not much of an amazing story behind it, but I think you'll appreciate it better if I ever download my pictures.
So we have a medevac flight that's supposed to come down. It tried to come down yesterday, but failed due to rapidly deteriorating conditions out at Pegasus. I had an opportunity to read the Terminal Area Forecast for it, and it was amazing to see how fast the weather went from flyable conditions to horrible conditions. I think it was less than five minutes that made the difference.
Luckily I got to stay in town for the attempt yesterday. Red 4 decided it would be fun to puke glycol again, and made about a hundred yard mess behind itself. This is actually better than the typical half mile mess we end up with, but I still felt bad for the guys that had to go out and shovel it up. I know at least one of our guys came back with a little frostnip from it, though he'll be fine.
They tried to get the flight back in here today, but they canceled it very early on, for which I was appreciative, though I'm pretty sure the poor guy sitting in medical thinks differently.
We're trying again tomorrow. The forecast is supposed to be a bit nicer. I won't get to enjoy driving out to Pegasus and back, though. I'll be at sea ice training most of the day, a welcome escape of a two hour commute in a lumbering Chieftain.
That's about all I have for right now. I guess I'll fill you all in on my sea ice adventures later if I don't freeze to death first. In the mean time, I think I'll start putting together some ideas for my post-Ice travels.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Overnight Dispatch
Don't get used to all these frequent updates, I'm sure I'll be slowing down soon.
The real reason you're getting this one at all is the fact that I'm covering the overnight dispatch this morning and need to do something that will keep me awake.
It's quiet in here. For starters, it's a Saturday night, but it's also a lovely con two night. With this combination, it's making for a very boring evening.
Also, we had some news that hit pretty close to home for those of us in Mactown. Christchurch, New Zealand was hit by a 7.1 earthquake yesterday morning. Luckily, there are no reported deaths and only two people with serious injuries. We were all grateful to hear that as many of us consider Cheech to be another one of our "homes".
Most of the city was without power and much of it had no water as of last night. I happened to know a couple of people who worked here and were vacationing in Cheech before heading off to other destinations. They're all fine, but I'm sure they'll have a story to tell when I get ahold of them.
For the most part, the city fared well, though some structures did come tumbling down. We watched video of storefronts burning in Cathedral Square near where we usually stay. We're still waiting to hear if Bailie's survived. We're hopeful.
The real reason you're getting this one at all is the fact that I'm covering the overnight dispatch this morning and need to do something that will keep me awake.
It's quiet in here. For starters, it's a Saturday night, but it's also a lovely con two night. With this combination, it's making for a very boring evening.
Also, we had some news that hit pretty close to home for those of us in Mactown. Christchurch, New Zealand was hit by a 7.1 earthquake yesterday morning. Luckily, there are no reported deaths and only two people with serious injuries. We were all grateful to hear that as many of us consider Cheech to be another one of our "homes".
Most of the city was without power and much of it had no water as of last night. I happened to know a couple of people who worked here and were vacationing in Cheech before heading off to other destinations. They're all fine, but I'm sure they'll have a story to tell when I get ahold of them.
For the most part, the city fared well, though some structures did come tumbling down. We watched video of storefronts burning in Cathedral Square near where we usually stay. We're still waiting to hear if Bailie's survived. We're hopeful.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Planeless
There are no more planes. None at all. Nothing scheduled until September 23rd.
It's wonderful.
Sure, we don't have any mail or freshies or neat toys that come down as cargo, but we get to sleep. Our off days are actually off days again. No more having to come in to sit at Pegasus waiting for a plane to drop off more beakers and slowly go crazy from boredom.
Also, the break gives us some time to put our fire trucks back into some state of functional usage. This winfly has been hard on them. We've had issues with four out of six crash trucks. Red 1 got plugged into a three phase outlet when it's built for two phase (toasted the heater package in the back), Red 2 doesn't have a working generator (which prevents us from keeping the package warm when on the move), Red 3 decided it didn't like having a transmission anymore, Red 4 thought it would be fun to not discharge foam when needed (more on this later), and Red 6 doesn't like keeping glycol in it's engine.
Also, one of the perks of not having flights means I don't have to unexpectedly take Red 2 out to Pegasus in the middle of the night when another truck blows its transmission.
Red 2 is a long, slow ride no matter how you look at it. Even with me racing out there last minute with an hour before the flight is due, I still didn't make it in time. I tried, at least, at all four miles per hour.
Driving the ice roads at night is pretty cool, though. There isn't much to see to start with, but at night there's even less. Aside from the tracks from other vehicles and the marker flags, there isn't anything else to look at. At one point, since I was the only one on the road, I turned off all of my lights for a moment to see what it would look like. I was a little surprised to see that when I turned the lights off, a green glow covered everything. I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me, but in reality, it was the Aurora Australis. While I didn't get to enjoy them then, I did get to see them later in the evening, though less intense than before.
No more looking at C-17s through the fog emanating from a score of tailpipes. As cool as that is, it's still cold and boring. I did get some cool pictures, though. Just wait until I get them downloaded.
Oh, so we had a fire the other day. B shift had the pleasure of enjoying it this time. The fuelie's Ford stakebody truck caught fire out on the sea ice the other day, just shy of town. It's suspected that they burned up the transmission and just kept going until it caught fire, though this is officially unconfirmed.
B shift went out with Red 4 to go put it out. They made it out there without it being completely on fire, so they were off to a good start. The bad news came, however, when they went to charge the system and the foam refused to discharge. While the purple k dry chemical discharged just fine, it is not typically enough by itself to fully extinguish a fire.
The fire was however finally controlled when shovels were put into action and snow was discharged on the remnants of the fire. It's a harsh continent. Creative solutions work.
Unfortunately, this only went to further reinforce the poor image of our current Renegade fleet. It's a one of a kind system that's had more than it's share of teething problems. We thought we had all of the big bugs worked out of it last season, but it looks like we have more work to do.
Drifting onto another topic now, I would like to touch on nacreous clouds. They are an incredible and rare sight in the world. Only a few places down here in Antarctica really only get them. They resemble something of a beautiful, oily smear on the sky and show with every color imaginable. I have a few pictures of the sky looking like it's on fire. It's incredible. Words don't really do it justice in the least. I suggest all of you come down here and investigate it for yourself.
As for the winfly town life, it has been good. The town population is large for a winfly, with it pushing 600 people. A normal winfly would only add about another hundred people or so. We're running at more than double the normal population and that's created its own set of problems.
The housing situation has been interesting. Due to a last minute change by the NSF, 203 turned into a beaker only dorm. This forced the opening of other dorms that tend not to fare as well in the colder months as the others.
I happen to be in one of these chilly dorms. 211 is a great dorm for the most part, but parts of it are not that well insulated. We've had problems with our toilets freezing up and ice forming the bottoms of all the showers. My room gets a little chilly sometimes, too, though it's not bad when you consider it's often -30F outside.
If you're wondering about the weather, it's chilly. If the wind is blowing, it's miserable. We had wind chills exceeding -74F the other day. I'm glad that's fairly infrequent this time of year. South Pole has been hitting new records lately. Just prior to our arrival, they reached a new record low of -104F. Glad I'm not there right now.
If you think that's cold, I hate to disappoint you, but Vostock Station gets even colder...
As for here and now, we're probably around -25F with zero wind. Definitely sweatshirt weather today. I'm going to live it up.
That's all for now. Time for a safety nap.
It's wonderful.
Sure, we don't have any mail or freshies or neat toys that come down as cargo, but we get to sleep. Our off days are actually off days again. No more having to come in to sit at Pegasus waiting for a plane to drop off more beakers and slowly go crazy from boredom.
Also, the break gives us some time to put our fire trucks back into some state of functional usage. This winfly has been hard on them. We've had issues with four out of six crash trucks. Red 1 got plugged into a three phase outlet when it's built for two phase (toasted the heater package in the back), Red 2 doesn't have a working generator (which prevents us from keeping the package warm when on the move), Red 3 decided it didn't like having a transmission anymore, Red 4 thought it would be fun to not discharge foam when needed (more on this later), and Red 6 doesn't like keeping glycol in it's engine.
Also, one of the perks of not having flights means I don't have to unexpectedly take Red 2 out to Pegasus in the middle of the night when another truck blows its transmission.
Red 2 is a long, slow ride no matter how you look at it. Even with me racing out there last minute with an hour before the flight is due, I still didn't make it in time. I tried, at least, at all four miles per hour.
Driving the ice roads at night is pretty cool, though. There isn't much to see to start with, but at night there's even less. Aside from the tracks from other vehicles and the marker flags, there isn't anything else to look at. At one point, since I was the only one on the road, I turned off all of my lights for a moment to see what it would look like. I was a little surprised to see that when I turned the lights off, a green glow covered everything. I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me, but in reality, it was the Aurora Australis. While I didn't get to enjoy them then, I did get to see them later in the evening, though less intense than before.
No more looking at C-17s through the fog emanating from a score of tailpipes. As cool as that is, it's still cold and boring. I did get some cool pictures, though. Just wait until I get them downloaded.
Oh, so we had a fire the other day. B shift had the pleasure of enjoying it this time. The fuelie's Ford stakebody truck caught fire out on the sea ice the other day, just shy of town. It's suspected that they burned up the transmission and just kept going until it caught fire, though this is officially unconfirmed.
B shift went out with Red 4 to go put it out. They made it out there without it being completely on fire, so they were off to a good start. The bad news came, however, when they went to charge the system and the foam refused to discharge. While the purple k dry chemical discharged just fine, it is not typically enough by itself to fully extinguish a fire.
The fire was however finally controlled when shovels were put into action and snow was discharged on the remnants of the fire. It's a harsh continent. Creative solutions work.
Unfortunately, this only went to further reinforce the poor image of our current Renegade fleet. It's a one of a kind system that's had more than it's share of teething problems. We thought we had all of the big bugs worked out of it last season, but it looks like we have more work to do.
Drifting onto another topic now, I would like to touch on nacreous clouds. They are an incredible and rare sight in the world. Only a few places down here in Antarctica really only get them. They resemble something of a beautiful, oily smear on the sky and show with every color imaginable. I have a few pictures of the sky looking like it's on fire. It's incredible. Words don't really do it justice in the least. I suggest all of you come down here and investigate it for yourself.
As for the winfly town life, it has been good. The town population is large for a winfly, with it pushing 600 people. A normal winfly would only add about another hundred people or so. We're running at more than double the normal population and that's created its own set of problems.
The housing situation has been interesting. Due to a last minute change by the NSF, 203 turned into a beaker only dorm. This forced the opening of other dorms that tend not to fare as well in the colder months as the others.
I happen to be in one of these chilly dorms. 211 is a great dorm for the most part, but parts of it are not that well insulated. We've had problems with our toilets freezing up and ice forming the bottoms of all the showers. My room gets a little chilly sometimes, too, though it's not bad when you consider it's often -30F outside.
If you're wondering about the weather, it's chilly. If the wind is blowing, it's miserable. We had wind chills exceeding -74F the other day. I'm glad that's fairly infrequent this time of year. South Pole has been hitting new records lately. Just prior to our arrival, they reached a new record low of -104F. Glad I'm not there right now.
If you think that's cold, I hate to disappoint you, but Vostock Station gets even colder...
As for here and now, we're probably around -25F with zero wind. Definitely sweatshirt weather today. I'm going to live it up.
That's all for now. Time for a safety nap.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Condition One
The weather outside is frightful, which is making life for us as on duty firefighters delightful.
We've been having a pretty decent storm blow through today. Town is officially at condition two due to a lack of visibility, though it has been easily been dropping down to condition one (really bad) levels. At times, it's been getting hard to see the building next to us about thirty feet away. This is a little unusual for Mactown, as we tend to be fairly well protected by Ob hill from the blowing and drifting.
As a result of this less than superb weather, we've been staying in today. Aside from a few house chores, we're all just taking it easy. This has allowed me to come up with some time to actually post something.
Most of you may have thought I had abandoned you, but you'd be mistaken. A recent lack of technology and a serious lack of free time has delayed me in keeping you up to date with my Antarctic antics, but I shall hopefully make amends for that now.
After finally leaving Denver for orientation and training, we wandered our way down to New Zealand again. A short hop to Los Angeles, a 13.5 hour flight to Auckland, and another hour flight to Christchurch later, I was reunited with my old haunts in Cheech. Instead of staying in the Hotel So this time around, I went next door and enjoyed the significantly bigger rooms in the four star Grand Chancellor.
After settling in, the first order of business was to take a nap (which was readily achieved after my travels) and then to get a pint of Kilkenny over at the officially unofficial Ice bar Bailies.
My primary objectives for Christchurch accomplished, we proceeded to get on with work.
They did something a little different for us this year in Cheech. Normally we have a couple of days of training once we hit the Ice, but they tried to get it in to us before we left, so I had the honor of spending the morning over at the Clothing Distribution Center learning how to operate a forklift and finding a big red that fit.
Exciting, right?
Anyways, that completed, I spent a relatively quiet evening in Cheech hanging out and catching up with people.
We were supposed to fly the next morning, but due to a mechanical issue, our flight was canceled. We had already bag dragged, gotten in our ECW gear, and just about to go through the metal detectors when we saw our boomerang bags coming back on the pallet. A cheer erupted with the announcement of cancellation.
Getting canceled was not as much fun as it was last time. They had us strung along all day with two hour delays which meant that we couldn't wander too far from Cheech. Also, since we were making a later flight, it also meant that we didn't have hotel rooms anymore. All of this led to a lot of grumpy Americans sitting around in hotel lobbies.
After finally getting canceled, we received our new hotel accommodations. I was bumped over to the five star Crown Plaza. Life is tough sometimes.
Another night in Cheech later, we finally left.
Flying on a C-17 is still one of my favorite methods of travel. It's loud, cold, and spacious. I can deal with the first two quite easily and relish the third item.
Five hours later, we became the first flight to touch down on the Ice since March. As an item of note, we were also the first ever passenger flight to ever make a night vision goggle landing in Antarctica. The crews that were working stated that it was the eeriest thing seeing only pitch black and hearing the plane whoosh by and land.
Moving forward a bit, we went through another briefing and received our room assignments. Out of some strange, twisted bit of bureaucratic luck, I ended up in building 211. 211 is typically reserved for people with two or three years on the Ice, so I'm presently enjoying a large room that doesn't stay warm. Not bad as long as I remember to not use the shower on the end that forms ice in the bottom of the stall.
I also managed to end up with another firefighter as a roommate who is on the opposite shift. I basically have my own room again. Good deal.
Getting back on shift hasn't been that difficult. The crews over the winter have been small, and we're only making up for some of the losses due to the winter overs leaving. Hopefully this means we can skip out on having to go to day work and do "training" and just complete it during normal shifts.
We have been working a lot, though. Due to the Winfly flights, most of our off days are spent doing standbys at Pegasus airfield for about six hours. It really wears on you after about a week. With our current weather, though, we're getting a much appreciated break.
As a last note about the firehouse, is there anyone out there that wants to be chief? Ours is resigning and moving onto another job somewhere. While this leaves us a bit rudderless, I'm sure we'll keep to the fine Antarctic tradition of illogic and chaos.
That's it for now. Apologies to you all if it's a little rough as I'm just not motivated enough to proofread it. Maybe I'll get around to cleaning it up later.
Cheers,
Sunny Southern Guy
Addendum:
It's getting nasty out. I've almost been blown over more than a few times. The wind has literally sent me sliding on my heels across the ice. Opening doors is hazardous. They'll come swinging back at you and hard.
The Maineiac and myself had the honor of putting up the guide ropes. The guide ropes are placed up between buildings right before conditions officially go con one. It is not really a fun task stumbling through a blinding icy sandblaster to string ropes between buildings. The results consist of looking like a snow cone and having a dripping wet face from the snow melting on it.
We've also run two calls so far today. That's fairly impressive for us since we tend to average none.
The first was for an odor of smoke that turned out to have wafted away by the time we got there. Driving back was interesting since we literally couldn't see anything and the driver worked from memory to get around.
The second call of the evening was for a halon alarm over at VMF. I don't like halon. At all. Allow me to repeat this; I do not like halon.
Now that I'm clear on that subject, I'll explain. Halon is a wonderful though slightly antiquated fire suppressing agent. It works by being inert and displacing oxygen. It's also invisible and odorless, so it's a great candidate for knocking out firefighters.
So, after wandering around VMF and checking all four systems while on air, we finally figured out that it was a panel malfunction from the snow getting into it.
Picking up, I came back to the engine and tried to get in. A slight complication arose, however. The door had frozen shut. Funny how that works in Antarctica. So, I climbed into the other bucket with Kiwi Chris. It was a little tight in there, but it worked. Another blind ride back, we thawed out the wagon and got back to sitting.
Now to see if the bells keep ringing tonight. The heat detectors here are notorious for tripping in bad weather, so I may not sleep too much this night.
We've been having a pretty decent storm blow through today. Town is officially at condition two due to a lack of visibility, though it has been easily been dropping down to condition one (really bad) levels. At times, it's been getting hard to see the building next to us about thirty feet away. This is a little unusual for Mactown, as we tend to be fairly well protected by Ob hill from the blowing and drifting.
As a result of this less than superb weather, we've been staying in today. Aside from a few house chores, we're all just taking it easy. This has allowed me to come up with some time to actually post something.
Most of you may have thought I had abandoned you, but you'd be mistaken. A recent lack of technology and a serious lack of free time has delayed me in keeping you up to date with my Antarctic antics, but I shall hopefully make amends for that now.
After finally leaving Denver for orientation and training, we wandered our way down to New Zealand again. A short hop to Los Angeles, a 13.5 hour flight to Auckland, and another hour flight to Christchurch later, I was reunited with my old haunts in Cheech. Instead of staying in the Hotel So this time around, I went next door and enjoyed the significantly bigger rooms in the four star Grand Chancellor.
After settling in, the first order of business was to take a nap (which was readily achieved after my travels) and then to get a pint of Kilkenny over at the officially unofficial Ice bar Bailies.
My primary objectives for Christchurch accomplished, we proceeded to get on with work.
They did something a little different for us this year in Cheech. Normally we have a couple of days of training once we hit the Ice, but they tried to get it in to us before we left, so I had the honor of spending the morning over at the Clothing Distribution Center learning how to operate a forklift and finding a big red that fit.
Exciting, right?
Anyways, that completed, I spent a relatively quiet evening in Cheech hanging out and catching up with people.
We were supposed to fly the next morning, but due to a mechanical issue, our flight was canceled. We had already bag dragged, gotten in our ECW gear, and just about to go through the metal detectors when we saw our boomerang bags coming back on the pallet. A cheer erupted with the announcement of cancellation.
Getting canceled was not as much fun as it was last time. They had us strung along all day with two hour delays which meant that we couldn't wander too far from Cheech. Also, since we were making a later flight, it also meant that we didn't have hotel rooms anymore. All of this led to a lot of grumpy Americans sitting around in hotel lobbies.
After finally getting canceled, we received our new hotel accommodations. I was bumped over to the five star Crown Plaza. Life is tough sometimes.
Another night in Cheech later, we finally left.
Flying on a C-17 is still one of my favorite methods of travel. It's loud, cold, and spacious. I can deal with the first two quite easily and relish the third item.
Five hours later, we became the first flight to touch down on the Ice since March. As an item of note, we were also the first ever passenger flight to ever make a night vision goggle landing in Antarctica. The crews that were working stated that it was the eeriest thing seeing only pitch black and hearing the plane whoosh by and land.
Moving forward a bit, we went through another briefing and received our room assignments. Out of some strange, twisted bit of bureaucratic luck, I ended up in building 211. 211 is typically reserved for people with two or three years on the Ice, so I'm presently enjoying a large room that doesn't stay warm. Not bad as long as I remember to not use the shower on the end that forms ice in the bottom of the stall.
I also managed to end up with another firefighter as a roommate who is on the opposite shift. I basically have my own room again. Good deal.
Getting back on shift hasn't been that difficult. The crews over the winter have been small, and we're only making up for some of the losses due to the winter overs leaving. Hopefully this means we can skip out on having to go to day work and do "training" and just complete it during normal shifts.
We have been working a lot, though. Due to the Winfly flights, most of our off days are spent doing standbys at Pegasus airfield for about six hours. It really wears on you after about a week. With our current weather, though, we're getting a much appreciated break.
As a last note about the firehouse, is there anyone out there that wants to be chief? Ours is resigning and moving onto another job somewhere. While this leaves us a bit rudderless, I'm sure we'll keep to the fine Antarctic tradition of illogic and chaos.
That's it for now. Apologies to you all if it's a little rough as I'm just not motivated enough to proofread it. Maybe I'll get around to cleaning it up later.
Cheers,
Sunny Southern Guy
Addendum:
It's getting nasty out. I've almost been blown over more than a few times. The wind has literally sent me sliding on my heels across the ice. Opening doors is hazardous. They'll come swinging back at you and hard.
The Maineiac and myself had the honor of putting up the guide ropes. The guide ropes are placed up between buildings right before conditions officially go con one. It is not really a fun task stumbling through a blinding icy sandblaster to string ropes between buildings. The results consist of looking like a snow cone and having a dripping wet face from the snow melting on it.
We've also run two calls so far today. That's fairly impressive for us since we tend to average none.
The first was for an odor of smoke that turned out to have wafted away by the time we got there. Driving back was interesting since we literally couldn't see anything and the driver worked from memory to get around.
The second call of the evening was for a halon alarm over at VMF. I don't like halon. At all. Allow me to repeat this; I do not like halon.
Now that I'm clear on that subject, I'll explain. Halon is a wonderful though slightly antiquated fire suppressing agent. It works by being inert and displacing oxygen. It's also invisible and odorless, so it's a great candidate for knocking out firefighters.
So, after wandering around VMF and checking all four systems while on air, we finally figured out that it was a panel malfunction from the snow getting into it.
Picking up, I came back to the engine and tried to get in. A slight complication arose, however. The door had frozen shut. Funny how that works in Antarctica. So, I climbed into the other bucket with Kiwi Chris. It was a little tight in there, but it worked. Another blind ride back, we thawed out the wagon and got back to sitting.
Now to see if the bells keep ringing tonight. The heat detectors here are notorious for tripping in bad weather, so I may not sleep too much this night.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Back for More?
Due to popular demand, Sunny Southern Beach will publishing a new season of Antarctic exploits and antics.
The reason? I'm crazy enough to go back for more.
Just to help you fill in the gaps, I'll give a quick rundown of my life for the last few months.
After leaving the Ice, I went wandering through New Zealand for a couple of weeks. It was easily one of the best trips of my life. For anyone who thinks they'd like to visit NZ, I will gladly give you a thousand and one reasons why.
Following that, I came back stateside. After scrounging around a couple of months to find any kind of job, a friend of mine was able to get me a job selling and delivering HVAC equipment. As an amusing side note, the air conditioning in the store did not work, even though we had access to a large supply of parts and new units.
While I did have fun at that job and was learning new things, the money wasn't really there. I had been offered another contract to return to the Ice, and seeing little in the way of better options (along with a strong personal interest in returning), I decided to accept the offer and come back. I will be working again as a firefighter this year.
That pretty much brings everything up to date. I am currently sitting in my hotel room in Denver recovering from a long day at orientation (and a long night out on the town catching up with some old "A" shifters who live locally and aren't coming back)
Yesterday, we had our annual recertification burn for our Airport Rescue Firefighter training. Myself and seven other returnees ran through multiple scenarios with the aircraft crash simulator. Though we were a little bit rusty, we actually did pretty well, with only a few relatively minor things needed to improve on.
I was actually paid a fairly high compliment yesterday as well. During the first burn, I actually got to run the line. A fairly rare event for someone who has spent most of his time on a ladder truck. Anyway, one of the instructors mentioned at the end of the day that the guy running the pipe on the first burn made a very aggressive attack on the fire.
Not bad for someone who doesn't really do the hose thing that much. Also, amusingly enough, that instructor was also a truckie. I wonder if that detracts from the compliment? Anyway, I'm done tooting my own horn. For now.
If you're wondering why I seem to be leaving much earlier than last year, you're right. I'm coming down to the Ice for Winfly this year, about a full month and a half earlier than last time. I'll be on the first flight to McMurdo since early March, which will be interesting. I'm sure our sight will be a welcome relief to many of the winterovers who are starting to get a little crunchy.
Anyways, that pretty much fills you in up to right now. Tomorrow I have one more day of orientation training and then we fly out to New Zealand again. I have to get busy packing and getting ready to go again, so I'll end it here.
One last thing; it's been great hanging out with all my Ice friends again.
The reason? I'm crazy enough to go back for more.
Just to help you fill in the gaps, I'll give a quick rundown of my life for the last few months.
After leaving the Ice, I went wandering through New Zealand for a couple of weeks. It was easily one of the best trips of my life. For anyone who thinks they'd like to visit NZ, I will gladly give you a thousand and one reasons why.
Following that, I came back stateside. After scrounging around a couple of months to find any kind of job, a friend of mine was able to get me a job selling and delivering HVAC equipment. As an amusing side note, the air conditioning in the store did not work, even though we had access to a large supply of parts and new units.
While I did have fun at that job and was learning new things, the money wasn't really there. I had been offered another contract to return to the Ice, and seeing little in the way of better options (along with a strong personal interest in returning), I decided to accept the offer and come back. I will be working again as a firefighter this year.
That pretty much brings everything up to date. I am currently sitting in my hotel room in Denver recovering from a long day at orientation (and a long night out on the town catching up with some old "A" shifters who live locally and aren't coming back)
Yesterday, we had our annual recertification burn for our Airport Rescue Firefighter training. Myself and seven other returnees ran through multiple scenarios with the aircraft crash simulator. Though we were a little bit rusty, we actually did pretty well, with only a few relatively minor things needed to improve on.
I was actually paid a fairly high compliment yesterday as well. During the first burn, I actually got to run the line. A fairly rare event for someone who has spent most of his time on a ladder truck. Anyway, one of the instructors mentioned at the end of the day that the guy running the pipe on the first burn made a very aggressive attack on the fire.
Not bad for someone who doesn't really do the hose thing that much. Also, amusingly enough, that instructor was also a truckie. I wonder if that detracts from the compliment? Anyway, I'm done tooting my own horn. For now.
If you're wondering why I seem to be leaving much earlier than last year, you're right. I'm coming down to the Ice for Winfly this year, about a full month and a half earlier than last time. I'll be on the first flight to McMurdo since early March, which will be interesting. I'm sure our sight will be a welcome relief to many of the winterovers who are starting to get a little crunchy.
Anyways, that pretty much fills you in up to right now. Tomorrow I have one more day of orientation training and then we fly out to New Zealand again. I have to get busy packing and getting ready to go again, so I'll end it here.
One last thing; it's been great hanging out with all my Ice friends again.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Et Finis?
To all of my formally loyal readers, I am forced to issue you my apologies.
I haven't been very good at keeping up with this blog. It was partly out of laziness that I did stop posting, but I also had a few other reasons which will go unnamed at this juncture.
Anyway, I would like to at least partially make it up to you by at least creating a "final" post and give you a run down on what's happened since the rugby game so many months ago.
If you haven't heard or can't tell, I'm off the Ice now. I miss it terribly. I made some wonderful friends down there and I hope to see many of you again someday. There's never a promise of that, especially considering the often daring and often long-legged wanderings of the Ice people, but the paths of wanderers cross more often than you'd imagine.
Looking back through my hundreds and hundreds of pictures, I remember vividly many fun times and amusing anecdotes. For a brief conclusion to this adventure, I'm going to post some of these pictures and tell the story associated with them.
Standby for the past...
As mentioned in a previous post, we had our annual rugby match with the Kiwis. Of course we lost, though there was some talk of the Kiwis cheating substantially through illegal substitutions (hard to tell when their jerseys don't have numbers) and of a covert early morning widening of the pitch.
Regardless of speculation, we kept with tradition and lost with only one concussion for the day.
If I ever go back, I'm joining the rugby team.
To give those of you an idea of how far behind Mactown is in some respects, I show you one of the supplies stocked on the ambulances. The packaging is of Petrolatum gauze (something I'd never heard of before the Ice) and is presumably for burns. If you look closely at the bottom of the picture, you'll note the date of manufacture.
No, that's not a typo. That's mint condition 1972 Petrolatum. Since there's no expiration date, we can only assume it's still good.
Pictured above is our lovely and vivacious resident Maineiac staring wistfully at the Swedish icebreaker Oden as she tears through what was once Ice Town. Since the Maineiac is a winterover and is still on the Ice making sure that Mactown doesn't burn down before next season, I'm pretty sure the thoughts going through her mind in this picture go something like this: "I signed up for fourteen months on the Ice...but if I can just stow away...and they have a coffee bar..."
Hawaiian shirt dispatch days. This is what happens when we run short on a dispatcher and they need a dedicated firefighter to fill in. Contrary to how it looks, I'm actually working very hard. It's quite difficult to look that good all the time, after all...
Also, note the evolution of the mustache as the season progresses. Yes, I know it looks bad. Though with the shortage of eligible bachelorettes on Ice, I doubt anyone there noticed.
Pictured above are some of my associates (our new resident Jano and the Seahawk fan) enjoying another American Night over at Scott Base's "Tatty Flag" pub. It's always nice to get "Over the Hill" to enjoy the hospitality of our Kiwi neighbors. As well as meeting interesting people with amusing accents, the beer goes for about $.80. With a shuttle bus driver provided, how can an evening socializing with them go wrong?
This may just seem like a nice scenic picture of water off of Hut Point to you, but to those of us who were on the Ice, this was a remarkable time. The fact that we had open water was incredible.
Open water is not a common occurrence in Mactown. It created quite a stir in town, with everyone going out to Hut Point on their off time to gaze at the water, smell (Yes, actually smell! Something our frozen town had a lack of unless it was diesel or cigarettes.) salt water, and watch as the Adelie penguins, seals, and occasional whale provided us with priceless entertainment.
As the weather in Mactown warmed up, the local frisbee golf (or "frolf" in the local vernacular) course became more appealing to the residents of the town, leading myself and my Captain, pictured above trying to overcome a twenty foot gravel bank in a cargo yard to reach the hole, to go out and enjoy the course.
With gusty winds and the weather possibly above freezing, we made our way through the extremely technical course. Each hole is supposedly a par three, however, it is in this humble fris-duffer's opinion that most holes are at least par fives.
The prevalence of pipe hazards, frozen melt pools, obstacle buildings, pallets, forklift traps, and numerous other industrial objects-turned-irritants supports my claim. However, the Rec office disagrees and has kept the course at par three.
So it turns out that Kiwis don't really know how to operate their airplanes when they're not in the sky. This slightly battered and broken extinguisher met its fate as the Kiwi [Plane that Shall Not be Named], sometimes known locally as "Voldermort" fired up and tried to leave.
Being ready to leave, they didn't seem too concerned about the big yellow thing that happened to be in their way, so they just ran into it bringing their departure to an immediate halt. Luckily, Voldermort wasn't substantially damaged (though I'm sure some Kiwi pride was) and later departed without problems.
As amusing as this was, it actually turned into a headache for myself and Tex. We were the ones who were to do the hardstand for its takeoff. After a quick race to the midpoint of the Ice Runway, we proceeded to sit there for almost an hour as we wondered why they hadn't left yet. Eventually we decided to head back and were later filled in on the details.
Pictured above is a shameless "hero shot" of myself out at the Pegasus Ice Runway with a C-17 on the ground. Another day at work, and another day in paradise.
Above is the USS Paul Buck at the Ice Pier. The Buck is the Navy oiler that came down to resupply us with several million gallons of fuel for the next year. This was a fairly big event as it represents the beginning of the vessel period of the season and signals the beginning of the end of summer.
As the season starts to come to a close, morale on station begins to decline. People are starting to wear down from the six day a week work schedule and productivity begins to slip.
As a result, station management sees fit to provide many people from across the station with a chance to go on a morale trip, more commonly known as a "boondoggle". My trip was to take snowmachines to the foot of Mt. Erebus, our resident active volcano. The trip itself is known as "Room with a View".
The weather had looked more promising earlier in the day (this was an evening trip), but overcast began to roll in as we made our way up. The views were still spectacular, but could have been better. Being able to see some of our gorgeous landscape was great, but the real fun was being able to actually go fast again. While we were officially limited to about 30mph, the group may have gone a wee bit faster at times. How fast? I won't say, but I'll tell you it was easily the fastest I'd gone since my arrival on the Ice, especially considering the 25mph limit on the roads.
A breakdown of the Mactown population posted outside of Housing. In short, pickings are slim for the gentlemen. For the ladies, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.
One of the big projects on station this season was the repainting of the galley. This was done both to reseal the roof which had developed a few leaks, and to possibly tell us of new corporate sponsorship for the NSF. Welcome to Walmart?
Interestingly enough, the paint being used is actually blue bed liner used in trucks. It's thick, durable, and being applied in temperatures well below what was intended.
Also, for a time during the most painting, people seemed unusually happy when eating in the galley. Most likely from the fumes that kept drifting in.
The M/V American Tern is coming into port at the Ice Pier. This picture actually shows it shortly after it impacted and bounced off the pier, likely taking a few icy chunks with it. With the arrival of the Tern, "vessel week" officially began.
Keeping in the true Mactown fashion of "if it isn't broke it doesn't belong here", word spread quickly that the Tern was busy sinking into the depths below. This was a partly true statement as the Tern had developed a leak in a seawater intake pipe for the fire suppression system that the crew could not effectively patch. After calling on the services of FEMC, the leak was repaired and the "sinking" ended.
Vessel week was a busy time, but also a time with limited amusement available. During the whole of offload, the bars are closed (with the exception of free coffee being served at the Coffee House) and the store is no longer allowed to sell alcohol. For those who had stockpiled in anticipation, it was of little concern, though for the rest of us we were without our usual vices to create minor mischief with.
Board games and coffee ruled that week. It wasn't that bad in the end, though the lack of the social aspect of the bars did create a bit of a downer.
This is a view looking down the bridge of the Tern. As offload/load neared completion, the fire department was invited to take a tour of the the vessel. It was interesting to see the insides of the vessel, especially one that had been built originally in Cold War Germany. Being a complete gearhead at heart, I could go on for a while about the mechanical aspects of the ship, but I'll spare you the details this once.
As the season came closer to the end, I was disappointed by the fact that I had yet to actually make it out to Castle Rock, our longest and one of our more spectacular trails. Pictured above is the second "Apple" (an emergency shelter) with Castle Rock looming a mile or so in the distance.
The hike out to it is long and boring. The day we went, the weather was good, but the snow was a little powdery and made for some difficulty tromping through it. The climb to the top is steep, but actually very easy as ropes have been set up to hold onto as you make your way up or down.
When we made it to the top, we could see everything for miles and miles around. Open water past the Razorback islands and the beauty of the Royal Society Range in the distance. It was certainly worth walking nearly ten miles round trip to see.
With the season winding down, and with fewer things for me to break/fix, I figured it was time to put together my tally for the season. With some spare time and a grease pencil, I marked my "kills" on the side of Engine 2, my truck for the shift.
Most of my kills were from breaking trucks in the harshest environment in the world, but the last one on the right was more of an accomplishment. I don't recall whether or not I mentioned breaking the "T-Site" or not, but I managed to do it from about a mile away. At least that's what the Captain says...
Above is my final revenge on the Seahawk fan. On a night much earlier in the season, he thought it would be fun to send a double shot of tequila down the bar for me. Not being a fan of tequila in the least, I vowed revenge.
Many weeks later, I finally made good on my promise. Holding in his hand is a beverage known as the "Four Horsemen". As you can guess, anything named after the bringers of the Apocalypse can't be good. It comprised a copious amount of several ill tasting varieties of booze. I enjoyed the look on his face as he drank it. A truce was called shortly after.
As the last of the LC-130s left Pegasus for the season, there wasn't much left to do on the final full shift out there, so the crew picked up their hockey sticks and went to work. It's amazing how easy it is to play hockey when you're living on an ice sheet.
As another interesting side note, this was the same day I drove Red 2 from Pegasus back to "The Rock" to be put away for the winter. It was a long, slow drive. The thirteen miles in between took nearly three hours to cover, and the scenery wasn't that spectacular due to overcast. The ride can be summed up by comparing it to staring at a blank sheet of paper for two and a half hours while being rattled around followed by about twenty minutes of sheer terror as I wasn't sure if it would make it up the hill to get to town without killing me (it stalled out twice and almost rolled back down the hill).
The season has ended, for me at least. Here we are, all stacked up in our Big Reds waiting to get on the C-17 to go back to the real world. It was a bit of a surreal experience. It didn't quite feel like it was actually happening.
The days preceding my departure actually got to be a little depressing. I was on one of the last flights to leave, and the dorm grew emptier and emptier with less and less to do. Halls that once bustled with activity were now silent. Friends were gone. The town was quieter, the galley emptier. I wondered where all my time had gone.
With goodbyes said to the winterovers staffing the hardstands, we boarded and flew away, on to find the rest of our destinies.
Perhaps I should have stayed?
I haven't been very good at keeping up with this blog. It was partly out of laziness that I did stop posting, but I also had a few other reasons which will go unnamed at this juncture.
Anyway, I would like to at least partially make it up to you by at least creating a "final" post and give you a run down on what's happened since the rugby game so many months ago.
If you haven't heard or can't tell, I'm off the Ice now. I miss it terribly. I made some wonderful friends down there and I hope to see many of you again someday. There's never a promise of that, especially considering the often daring and often long-legged wanderings of the Ice people, but the paths of wanderers cross more often than you'd imagine.
Looking back through my hundreds and hundreds of pictures, I remember vividly many fun times and amusing anecdotes. For a brief conclusion to this adventure, I'm going to post some of these pictures and tell the story associated with them.
Standby for the past...
As mentioned in a previous post, we had our annual rugby match with the Kiwis. Of course we lost, though there was some talk of the Kiwis cheating substantially through illegal substitutions (hard to tell when their jerseys don't have numbers) and of a covert early morning widening of the pitch.
Regardless of speculation, we kept with tradition and lost with only one concussion for the day.
If I ever go back, I'm joining the rugby team.
To give those of you an idea of how far behind Mactown is in some respects, I show you one of the supplies stocked on the ambulances. The packaging is of Petrolatum gauze (something I'd never heard of before the Ice) and is presumably for burns. If you look closely at the bottom of the picture, you'll note the date of manufacture.
No, that's not a typo. That's mint condition 1972 Petrolatum. Since there's no expiration date, we can only assume it's still good.
Pictured above is our lovely and vivacious resident Maineiac staring wistfully at the Swedish icebreaker Oden as she tears through what was once Ice Town. Since the Maineiac is a winterover and is still on the Ice making sure that Mactown doesn't burn down before next season, I'm pretty sure the thoughts going through her mind in this picture go something like this: "I signed up for fourteen months on the Ice...but if I can just stow away...and they have a coffee bar..."
Hawaiian shirt dispatch days. This is what happens when we run short on a dispatcher and they need a dedicated firefighter to fill in. Contrary to how it looks, I'm actually working very hard. It's quite difficult to look that good all the time, after all...
Also, note the evolution of the mustache as the season progresses. Yes, I know it looks bad. Though with the shortage of eligible bachelorettes on Ice, I doubt anyone there noticed.
Pictured above are some of my associates (our new resident Jano and the Seahawk fan) enjoying another American Night over at Scott Base's "Tatty Flag" pub. It's always nice to get "Over the Hill" to enjoy the hospitality of our Kiwi neighbors. As well as meeting interesting people with amusing accents, the beer goes for about $.80. With a shuttle bus driver provided, how can an evening socializing with them go wrong?
This may just seem like a nice scenic picture of water off of Hut Point to you, but to those of us who were on the Ice, this was a remarkable time. The fact that we had open water was incredible.
Open water is not a common occurrence in Mactown. It created quite a stir in town, with everyone going out to Hut Point on their off time to gaze at the water, smell (Yes, actually smell! Something our frozen town had a lack of unless it was diesel or cigarettes.) salt water, and watch as the Adelie penguins, seals, and occasional whale provided us with priceless entertainment.
As the weather in Mactown warmed up, the local frisbee golf (or "frolf" in the local vernacular) course became more appealing to the residents of the town, leading myself and my Captain, pictured above trying to overcome a twenty foot gravel bank in a cargo yard to reach the hole, to go out and enjoy the course.
With gusty winds and the weather possibly above freezing, we made our way through the extremely technical course. Each hole is supposedly a par three, however, it is in this humble fris-duffer's opinion that most holes are at least par fives.
The prevalence of pipe hazards, frozen melt pools, obstacle buildings, pallets, forklift traps, and numerous other industrial objects-turned-irritants supports my claim. However, the Rec office disagrees and has kept the course at par three.
So it turns out that Kiwis don't really know how to operate their airplanes when they're not in the sky. This slightly battered and broken extinguisher met its fate as the Kiwi [Plane that Shall Not be Named], sometimes known locally as "Voldermort" fired up and tried to leave.
Being ready to leave, they didn't seem too concerned about the big yellow thing that happened to be in their way, so they just ran into it bringing their departure to an immediate halt. Luckily, Voldermort wasn't substantially damaged (though I'm sure some Kiwi pride was) and later departed without problems.
As amusing as this was, it actually turned into a headache for myself and Tex. We were the ones who were to do the hardstand for its takeoff. After a quick race to the midpoint of the Ice Runway, we proceeded to sit there for almost an hour as we wondered why they hadn't left yet. Eventually we decided to head back and were later filled in on the details.
Pictured above is a shameless "hero shot" of myself out at the Pegasus Ice Runway with a C-17 on the ground. Another day at work, and another day in paradise.
Above is the USS Paul Buck at the Ice Pier. The Buck is the Navy oiler that came down to resupply us with several million gallons of fuel for the next year. This was a fairly big event as it represents the beginning of the vessel period of the season and signals the beginning of the end of summer.
As the season starts to come to a close, morale on station begins to decline. People are starting to wear down from the six day a week work schedule and productivity begins to slip.
As a result, station management sees fit to provide many people from across the station with a chance to go on a morale trip, more commonly known as a "boondoggle". My trip was to take snowmachines to the foot of Mt. Erebus, our resident active volcano. The trip itself is known as "Room with a View".
The weather had looked more promising earlier in the day (this was an evening trip), but overcast began to roll in as we made our way up. The views were still spectacular, but could have been better. Being able to see some of our gorgeous landscape was great, but the real fun was being able to actually go fast again. While we were officially limited to about 30mph, the group may have gone a wee bit faster at times. How fast? I won't say, but I'll tell you it was easily the fastest I'd gone since my arrival on the Ice, especially considering the 25mph limit on the roads.
A breakdown of the Mactown population posted outside of Housing. In short, pickings are slim for the gentlemen. For the ladies, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.
One of the big projects on station this season was the repainting of the galley. This was done both to reseal the roof which had developed a few leaks, and to possibly tell us of new corporate sponsorship for the NSF. Welcome to Walmart?
Interestingly enough, the paint being used is actually blue bed liner used in trucks. It's thick, durable, and being applied in temperatures well below what was intended.
Also, for a time during the most painting, people seemed unusually happy when eating in the galley. Most likely from the fumes that kept drifting in.
The M/V American Tern is coming into port at the Ice Pier. This picture actually shows it shortly after it impacted and bounced off the pier, likely taking a few icy chunks with it. With the arrival of the Tern, "vessel week" officially began.
Keeping in the true Mactown fashion of "if it isn't broke it doesn't belong here", word spread quickly that the Tern was busy sinking into the depths below. This was a partly true statement as the Tern had developed a leak in a seawater intake pipe for the fire suppression system that the crew could not effectively patch. After calling on the services of FEMC, the leak was repaired and the "sinking" ended.
Vessel week was a busy time, but also a time with limited amusement available. During the whole of offload, the bars are closed (with the exception of free coffee being served at the Coffee House) and the store is no longer allowed to sell alcohol. For those who had stockpiled in anticipation, it was of little concern, though for the rest of us we were without our usual vices to create minor mischief with.
Board games and coffee ruled that week. It wasn't that bad in the end, though the lack of the social aspect of the bars did create a bit of a downer.
This is a view looking down the bridge of the Tern. As offload/load neared completion, the fire department was invited to take a tour of the the vessel. It was interesting to see the insides of the vessel, especially one that had been built originally in Cold War Germany. Being a complete gearhead at heart, I could go on for a while about the mechanical aspects of the ship, but I'll spare you the details this once.
As the season came closer to the end, I was disappointed by the fact that I had yet to actually make it out to Castle Rock, our longest and one of our more spectacular trails. Pictured above is the second "Apple" (an emergency shelter) with Castle Rock looming a mile or so in the distance.
The hike out to it is long and boring. The day we went, the weather was good, but the snow was a little powdery and made for some difficulty tromping through it. The climb to the top is steep, but actually very easy as ropes have been set up to hold onto as you make your way up or down.
When we made it to the top, we could see everything for miles and miles around. Open water past the Razorback islands and the beauty of the Royal Society Range in the distance. It was certainly worth walking nearly ten miles round trip to see.
With the season winding down, and with fewer things for me to break/fix, I figured it was time to put together my tally for the season. With some spare time and a grease pencil, I marked my "kills" on the side of Engine 2, my truck for the shift.
Most of my kills were from breaking trucks in the harshest environment in the world, but the last one on the right was more of an accomplishment. I don't recall whether or not I mentioned breaking the "T-Site" or not, but I managed to do it from about a mile away. At least that's what the Captain says...
Above is my final revenge on the Seahawk fan. On a night much earlier in the season, he thought it would be fun to send a double shot of tequila down the bar for me. Not being a fan of tequila in the least, I vowed revenge.
Many weeks later, I finally made good on my promise. Holding in his hand is a beverage known as the "Four Horsemen". As you can guess, anything named after the bringers of the Apocalypse can't be good. It comprised a copious amount of several ill tasting varieties of booze. I enjoyed the look on his face as he drank it. A truce was called shortly after.
As the last of the LC-130s left Pegasus for the season, there wasn't much left to do on the final full shift out there, so the crew picked up their hockey sticks and went to work. It's amazing how easy it is to play hockey when you're living on an ice sheet.
As another interesting side note, this was the same day I drove Red 2 from Pegasus back to "The Rock" to be put away for the winter. It was a long, slow drive. The thirteen miles in between took nearly three hours to cover, and the scenery wasn't that spectacular due to overcast. The ride can be summed up by comparing it to staring at a blank sheet of paper for two and a half hours while being rattled around followed by about twenty minutes of sheer terror as I wasn't sure if it would make it up the hill to get to town without killing me (it stalled out twice and almost rolled back down the hill).
The season has ended, for me at least. Here we are, all stacked up in our Big Reds waiting to get on the C-17 to go back to the real world. It was a bit of a surreal experience. It didn't quite feel like it was actually happening.
The days preceding my departure actually got to be a little depressing. I was on one of the last flights to leave, and the dorm grew emptier and emptier with less and less to do. Halls that once bustled with activity were now silent. Friends were gone. The town was quieter, the galley emptier. I wondered where all my time had gone.
With goodbyes said to the winterovers staffing the hardstands, we boarded and flew away, on to find the rest of our destinies.
Perhaps I should have stayed?
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Late Night Nonsense
So it's been a while since I've updated this.
It happens. I'm a busy person here. I have a life at the bottom of the world. I can't always pander to your every whim.
Bet you didn't think that living on a sparsely populated research station could have so many things to do in my free time. You were wrong. Most of you are missing out on some of the best times I've had in my life. I'll be sad to leave this place.
Since it is late (I'm covering the midrats dispatch), I'll be brief tonight. The large quantity of coffee I drank today has worn off. I was splattered with some ancient foam premix today and have savored the aroma all day. I'm covered in dirt after beating various fire trucks with hammers. We just came back from a bells call and the wind is blowing. I'm glad I get to engage the pump and just sit in the truck and stay warm when the windchill is below zero again. I'd like a shower, but I'd like to find my rack and doze off more.
Things have been busy here. We had the annual rugby game against the Kiwis and lost, maintaining our tradition of being forever winless against them. It maintains the Kiwis record of having the longest (time wise) winning streak in the history of rugby. We put up a good fight in the first half, but by the second, everybody was just tired and the Kiwis took advantage of that.
All in all, it was a good time, and I was able to catch a sled towed by a Challenger back.
So I smelled seawater the other day. It was pretty awesome. The Swedish icebreaker Oden arrived almost two weeks ago and has been crushing ice ever since with a couple of brief stops in port to let their crew wander the streets of Mactown. It's interesting to see the slab of ice that I called home for many shifts in Ice Town crushed into little bits.
Anyway, some of the ice has started to push out to sea. It's pretty incredible to walk down to Hut Point and smell the salt air (something that's not diesel) and look into the clear waters of the Ross Sea.
The penguins have been wandering about more lately, too. Packs of up to sixty Adelies have been spotted frolicking in and around town. The seals and whales have found the open water and add to the fauna. The occasional skua rounds it out.
I can hear the fuelies chattering away on the radio right now. They're the only ones working tonight besides us. A few days ago, the USS Paul Buck (an oiler) arrived to resupply us with about a million gallons of fuel so we don't freeze to death in the next year.
In about a week or so the Tern will come to port and bring all the cargo we need so people like me will still have things to break and food harvested in 1998 to eat.
Frisbee golf here in the Antarctic is certainly a challenge. Some of the obstacles I encountered included pipeline traps, bulldozers, milvans, ice covered melt pools, steep and rocky slopes, and the heckling of Cap. It's a fun time, provided you didn't get into the sport to enjoy scenery more breathtaking than unheated storage buildings and Hazwaste.
So we won the scavenger hunt the other day. I got a "Get Rec'd" hat out of it. It took us a while to find the correct cowboy and Ant. 1 sign as well as the penguin pooper, but we did it. That's the most running I've done in boots in a long time. My legs were aching for a few days after that.
Luckily, I have a new hero at the coffee house to remedy that problem. She makes the strongest coffee with whiskey of all the baristas. It goes a long way to relieving those aches and pains (Irish Coffee and extra strength Tylenol have a lot in common as they both have caffeine and thin the blood). Red absolutely hates the taste of it. It's still funny seeing the look on her face whenever I make her take a sip.
Sounds like they're getting ready to shut down the mogas transfer soon. That's a big step, but I'm pretty sure they have a lot more AN-8 to move before they're done.
So I went to "Room With a View" yesterday for my boondoggle. It was pretty cool. It was my first time on a snowmachine and I had a blast. It was the fastest I've gone since I've arrived here. I topped out at around fifty miles a hour. The machine had a lot more left in it, but since I was with a group, I couldn't just blow past everyone.
The views up there on the foot of an active volcano were pretty awesome. The ice edge has progressed up to Inaccessible Island and is apparently approaching Mactown quickly. Seeing wide open water after seeing miles and miles of white ice for the last several months is a little weird.
I just pulled a metal sliver out of my knuckle. That explains why it felt funny.
So I'm a short timer now. Officially less than a month left in this contract. It doesn't really have that good of an effect on me. I'm starting to feel pieces of my old self come back again, the pieces that I was happy to leave behind.
Thoughts of being stuck back home leave me irritable. Looking at jobs makes me miserable. If there was something back home that looked interesting, maybe I'd be in a better mood. Potential unemployment doesn't really worry me. I've set myself up so I can manage for quite some time if the market doesn't pick up.
One of the few things that I have to look past that is the traveling that I have coming to me. I'm going to wander through a few countries before I touch the states again. I'll probably even come out of them with a few interesting stories and a bunch of pictures that can be used to torture people who don't really want to hear all about it.
To all those who keep asking me when I'll be back, the answer is that I don't know. I'm pretty sure I will be back eventually, though. I'll have to pick up my stuff at some point, at least. I'd hate to just leave my tools and truck behind.
Lori just referred to me as a cowboy redneck. I denied it, but maybe there's a little truth in it somewhere.
Looks like I'm getting relieved. Time to go hit my rack and sleep. I'll put some dream time aside to looking towards whatever the next adventure is. I'm pretty sure I'll have to have another one. If I don't, I'll probably lose my mind.
It happens. I'm a busy person here. I have a life at the bottom of the world. I can't always pander to your every whim.
Bet you didn't think that living on a sparsely populated research station could have so many things to do in my free time. You were wrong. Most of you are missing out on some of the best times I've had in my life. I'll be sad to leave this place.
Since it is late (I'm covering the midrats dispatch), I'll be brief tonight. The large quantity of coffee I drank today has worn off. I was splattered with some ancient foam premix today and have savored the aroma all day. I'm covered in dirt after beating various fire trucks with hammers. We just came back from a bells call and the wind is blowing. I'm glad I get to engage the pump and just sit in the truck and stay warm when the windchill is below zero again. I'd like a shower, but I'd like to find my rack and doze off more.
Things have been busy here. We had the annual rugby game against the Kiwis and lost, maintaining our tradition of being forever winless against them. It maintains the Kiwis record of having the longest (time wise) winning streak in the history of rugby. We put up a good fight in the first half, but by the second, everybody was just tired and the Kiwis took advantage of that.
All in all, it was a good time, and I was able to catch a sled towed by a Challenger back.
So I smelled seawater the other day. It was pretty awesome. The Swedish icebreaker Oden arrived almost two weeks ago and has been crushing ice ever since with a couple of brief stops in port to let their crew wander the streets of Mactown. It's interesting to see the slab of ice that I called home for many shifts in Ice Town crushed into little bits.
Anyway, some of the ice has started to push out to sea. It's pretty incredible to walk down to Hut Point and smell the salt air (something that's not diesel) and look into the clear waters of the Ross Sea.
The penguins have been wandering about more lately, too. Packs of up to sixty Adelies have been spotted frolicking in and around town. The seals and whales have found the open water and add to the fauna. The occasional skua rounds it out.
I can hear the fuelies chattering away on the radio right now. They're the only ones working tonight besides us. A few days ago, the USS Paul Buck (an oiler) arrived to resupply us with about a million gallons of fuel so we don't freeze to death in the next year.
In about a week or so the Tern will come to port and bring all the cargo we need so people like me will still have things to break and food harvested in 1998 to eat.
Frisbee golf here in the Antarctic is certainly a challenge. Some of the obstacles I encountered included pipeline traps, bulldozers, milvans, ice covered melt pools, steep and rocky slopes, and the heckling of Cap. It's a fun time, provided you didn't get into the sport to enjoy scenery more breathtaking than unheated storage buildings and Hazwaste.
So we won the scavenger hunt the other day. I got a "Get Rec'd" hat out of it. It took us a while to find the correct cowboy and Ant. 1 sign as well as the penguin pooper, but we did it. That's the most running I've done in boots in a long time. My legs were aching for a few days after that.
Luckily, I have a new hero at the coffee house to remedy that problem. She makes the strongest coffee with whiskey of all the baristas. It goes a long way to relieving those aches and pains (Irish Coffee and extra strength Tylenol have a lot in common as they both have caffeine and thin the blood). Red absolutely hates the taste of it. It's still funny seeing the look on her face whenever I make her take a sip.
Sounds like they're getting ready to shut down the mogas transfer soon. That's a big step, but I'm pretty sure they have a lot more AN-8 to move before they're done.
So I went to "Room With a View" yesterday for my boondoggle. It was pretty cool. It was my first time on a snowmachine and I had a blast. It was the fastest I've gone since I've arrived here. I topped out at around fifty miles a hour. The machine had a lot more left in it, but since I was with a group, I couldn't just blow past everyone.
The views up there on the foot of an active volcano were pretty awesome. The ice edge has progressed up to Inaccessible Island and is apparently approaching Mactown quickly. Seeing wide open water after seeing miles and miles of white ice for the last several months is a little weird.
I just pulled a metal sliver out of my knuckle. That explains why it felt funny.
So I'm a short timer now. Officially less than a month left in this contract. It doesn't really have that good of an effect on me. I'm starting to feel pieces of my old self come back again, the pieces that I was happy to leave behind.
Thoughts of being stuck back home leave me irritable. Looking at jobs makes me miserable. If there was something back home that looked interesting, maybe I'd be in a better mood. Potential unemployment doesn't really worry me. I've set myself up so I can manage for quite some time if the market doesn't pick up.
One of the few things that I have to look past that is the traveling that I have coming to me. I'm going to wander through a few countries before I touch the states again. I'll probably even come out of them with a few interesting stories and a bunch of pictures that can be used to torture people who don't really want to hear all about it.
To all those who keep asking me when I'll be back, the answer is that I don't know. I'm pretty sure I will be back eventually, though. I'll have to pick up my stuff at some point, at least. I'd hate to just leave my tools and truck behind.
Lori just referred to me as a cowboy redneck. I denied it, but maybe there's a little truth in it somewhere.
Looks like I'm getting relieved. Time to go hit my rack and sleep. I'll put some dream time aside to looking towards whatever the next adventure is. I'm pretty sure I'll have to have another one. If I don't, I'll probably lose my mind.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Behold the Truckie
Apparently this is the effect I have on machinery. This is the yoke from the output shaft on the transmission of Ambo 2.
I am the Truckie, destroyer of Zetron and conqueror of calipers. Powerstrokes bleed in my presence.
It turns out I’m a destructive force here in
Working out at the Crash Shack the other day, my ability to magically make things break came out into full force. During my time there, Ambo 2 failed to start on several occasions requiring jumpstarts, Red 4 decided to have indigestion and spill glycol, and Red 1 determined that stopping via use of the brakes was no longer necessary for a 70,000 pound tracked dinosaur.
The most entertaining of these, in my opinion, was Red 1 not wanting to stop. If you get bored by technical details, feel free to skip down a few paragraphs.
Following a hardstand for the C-17 from Cheech Red 1 needed fuel. Since we don’t normally move the Chieftains from their parking spots as they destroy the ice roads it was the first time it had been in motion for the day. As I shifted through the gears, I kept hearing a loud clunking that I couldn’t recall being there before. As I hadn’t driven it in a while, however, I couldn’t remember if this was normal as the Chieftains make lots of strange noises.
Pulling up to the fuel tank, I lined it up and downshifted to get ready to stop. After having dropped to first gear and then into neutral, I hit the brakes. Normally, this is where the Chieftain would come to a stop. Instead, it decided to roll a few more feet on its own and then stop. This came as a bit of a surprise, though it wasn’t a huge issue as the drag from the tracks and the level ice allowed it to come to a stop on its own.
Puzzled, and now wondering what the smell of burning brakes was coming from, I hopped out and dove under the front of the unit. Crawling behind the front pumpkin, I came to the disc brake that is located on the front drive shaft. Upon closer examination, I found that the front caliper bracket was loose (the cause of the clunking) and the vibrating action had loosened the fittings for the hydraulic brake causing it to dump fluid everywhere. Upon further inspection, I also found that the air brake used for parking was not engaged (I set it before leaving the cab) and that the pads had been loosely rubbing against the disc, causing the burning smell. Looking at the rear parking brake, I found the same situation.
After radioing in and letting Lt. Helitack know, I went to work trying to clean up and patch it. Absorbent pads took care of the spill and a wrench solved the leak.
Shortly after, Lt. Helitack and the rest of the crew came out to stare and provide their opinions.
After nursing Red 1 back to her parking spot, I was a little disappointed (though not wholly surprised) to find that the brake line had come loose and was leaking again.
A little while later, the phone rang in the Crash Shack. It was the Cap. He spoke with Lt. Helitack for a few minutes regarding the mechanical problems and then requested to speak with me.
Picking up the phone, I said, “Grant.”
He responded with “I send you all the way out to Pegasus, put you in the biggest fire truck we have, and you go and break it in half?!”
Before I could respond, I could hear the phone slam down on the other end. He had hung up.
It was worth a laugh. While likely at first appearance to you as an uninvolved reader it doesn’t sound like a good thing, it goes back to myself and the Captain having a unique relationship where we give each other a hard time constantly. It’s fun. He called back a few minutes later to laugh at me and then ask some more questions about the problem.
If you were skipping over the broken Red 1 story, please resume here. If you don’t want to hear about me breaking the Zetron radio console and the T-Site, please get off at the next exit.
For the next shift, I was assigned back in town at Station 1. As one of our dispatchers is on R&R before the winter sets in, we are currently short of personnel in the world of dispatch. As a result, lowly firefighters such as myself are required to fill in at dispatch.
This always creates some amusing situations since most of us haven’t really done much dispatching. This combined with the fact that very few real situations actually arise on station leads to various forms of chaos arising when something actually does happen.
Nearing the end of our shift, I had the pleasure of waking up a little early and stumbling in a half conscious manner down into the dispatch office to relieve
It was a quiet morning, with only a few phone calls from people looking for numbers. I sat in the office and watched through the windows as the rest of the crew swept the bays and did the rest of the morning chores.
After a little while, someone stopped in and told me that Scat 1 was trying to raise me on the radio for the morning radio check.
“Huh,” I thought. “How’d I miss that? I had channel two turned up.”
So I tried to raise Scat on the radio.
Silence.
“Weird,” I thought. I went and told someone to get Clint Eastwood to go back out and try it again, assuming that he’d already come back in. He went and tried, and nothing.
By this time, officers were now wandering into the office telling me that Scat was calling. At this point, after hearing nothing, I advised them that channel two didn’t seem to be working. A few quick checks with a portable radio confirmed this, and my status as the killer of the Zetron was confirmed.
Few were surprised when they found out I was in there when it decided to fail.
After a few phone calls and paging in the head dispatcher, chaos continued, albeit without me as I went off shift and went home for a safety nap.
Later, I discovered that I hadn’t destroyed the Zetron console, but in fact I had magically managed to destroy the transmitter at the T-Site. An enviable distinction, indeed.
Though the true cause of the fried transmitter was an unscheduled power outage during the previous night, I will certainly be remembered as the one who broke it.
Lastly, for any that doubt my amazing ability to create havoc and devastation just by being in the same geographic location as something, I give one final example.
Yesterday, an off day, the page came out looking for volunteers to help unload pallets of beer for the store.
Within minutes, off-duty firefighters appeared out of every nook and cranny to help, including myself.
The reason for the mass desire to help is simple: the store typically gives the volunteers free beer that would not normally be sold as perhaps one can of the six pack was damaged.
The beer offload proceeded as normal for the entire first pallet, with firefighters creating human conveyors moving beer from pallet to carts. The second pallet, loaded with Heineken, did not operate as smoothly.
While myself and a few others were inside offloading cases of beer and soda into stacks in the store, the rest of the group were out on the loading dock starting into the Heineken. The beer was wrapped up in layers of plastic rolled around the sides of the pallet, something that you’ve undoubtedly seen in various warehouse club stores such as Costco or Sam’s Club. Acting Lieutenant was cutting through the plastic in an effort to get to the beer.
As he did so, he came down to a layer that was held on by only a little bit of plastic.
He cut the plastic.
Now, what happened next I have pieced together from eyewitness statements.
Apparently, when Acting Lieutenant severed the last strip of plastic, the angle of the sun, gravity, and assorted laws of physics all came together and conspired to do the unthinkable.
With the last shred of saran wrap divided beneath the blade, the beers shifted under these new forces put on them. They shifted back, further back, and then down. It was a dreadful plummet. Horror ensued. I’m sure the terrified faces of those involved will never be equaled again. Case after case cascaded down out of control to the packed volcanic sands below. A sea of green cans and cardboard spilled everywhere. Hissing and spitting came from some of the cans. A few valiant volunteers dove in to save those wounded, doing their best to shotgun the ruptured cans, saving the liquid gold inside from a miserable fate in the sands of
When I stepped out, I was left aghast at the devastation.
I took pictures.
After cleaning up the mess (and having myself blamed for the disaster due to my destructive skills as a truckie even though I was a hundred feet away), we were each rewarded with a six pack of unfit for sale Heineken.
It’s a harsh continent. Sometimes bad things end up being good, though.
This now concludes the tales of destruction that have occurred in the last few days. I’m sure other things of interest have happened, though I can’t recall them. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that there is no sense of time here. It is five days until cookie day. That’s all I know.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Ambo Loves Me, Ambo Loves Me Not...
This one isn't mine. Photo credit goes to DA Drew (though I actually took the picture). This is our group out at Happy Camper enjoying some conversation and hot drinks at our kitchen table which was carved from the snow. To me, it's a little reminiscent of da Vinci's "The Last Supper". I'll leave it up to you if you think so, too.This place is really starting to look like the Antarctica that everyone imagines. The wind has been blowing, the snow has been falling, and the skies have been gray and dismal. The temperature has even been dropping in kind, making has what seemed like the artificial summer warmth of about 40F turn into what it should have always been.
It's been five days since we've seen the sun. It's been almost five days since we've seen the last C-17 come down to the Ice to bring us mail and freshies. The people working over in housing have been going crazy trying to find places for everyone to stay because of these delays. (They also don't like it that we know before them when flights are coming and going or if they've been canceled due to the weather.) Many are scheduled to be leaving, including two of our own.
One of my fellow "A" shifters is going home. He'll be missed by the guys here. He's been one of our more entertaining characters since Denver, and it will certainly make for a shift in the group dynamics.
The other one leaving is our Deputy Chief. Due to budgeting changes, he's returning to the Denver office as our Chief returns to the Ice. Though I never really got to know him well personally (If I'm interacting with anyone greater than two ranks above me, it's rarely a good thing.), I wish him the best to returning to the real world and reintegrating with "normal" society.
Even though the weather has been bad and the Hercs and seventeens have been grounded, it hasn't been uneventful for us here. We've made the best of the time physically isolated from the rest of the world by getting some training in.
Ever since we left Denver, we've been making slow but steady progress towards completing our job performance requirements that are needed to get our IFSAC certs completed.
Tuesday was my Kelly day, but I came in on my off day to get my C-130 training completed. In order to get out to Pegasus for the training, myself and three others who were on shift at Station 1 piled into Ambo 2, fresh out of the heavy shop from its round of preventative maintenance.
We all piled into our antiquated Ford gutbox and rattled our way down past Scott Base and onto the Ice Road. As we settled into the semi-consistent rumbling and sliding down the road, we made ourselves comfortable. I sprawled out on the cot while one of the other guys, a Seattleite, laid out on the bench seat. We traded idle chatter back and forth passing the time. Eventually, we became distracted.
It just kept shaking. It sounded like one of the shelves wanted to rattle loose with the medical bag hammering against it. We thought it was a little unusual, but considering the composition of the road and the general condition of things here, it didn't seem beyond the realm of normal.
Apparently, it had begun to exceed the realm of normal for the two guys up front (separated from us by a window) and they stopped our off road ambulance. After a brief inspection by the driver, he returned to his seat and put the unit back in motion.
It didn't go away, though. It didn't take long for the sound to change, either.
The weird vibration returned as soon as the wheels started turning again. It didn't last long. Perhaps fifty, maybe a hundred feet. Suddenly, the rumble turned into a pop-clunk, at which time all motion ceased.
Turning to the Seahawk fan next to me, I said "there goes the drive shaft".
After getting out of the back of the unit, it didn't take long to confirm my suspicions. Glancing under the unit, the rear drive shaft could be seen pointing up from its hanger and its shattered yoke making contact with the belly of the truck. Looking to the rear of the transmission, the yoke on the output shaft could be seen spinning methodically along as it seemed content to just churn the air.
In some ways, it's kind of sad to realize that I have the knowledge to know just by the sound of something breaking what has broken. Guess that means I've broken my fair share of things up to now. Too bad I'm only really good at fixing the things that I can put a wrench on, and not some of the other things I've broken in life.
To continue, we were stuck. While we tried to get the derelict Ford to move on just the front axle, it didn't have enough weight on it to drag the heavy box end through the snow. Not that it would have mattered much in the end as it would have been extremely difficult to secure the severed rear shaft to keep it from flailing about destructively.
With notifications made to both the firehouse and Fleet Ops and with a short photo and movie opportunity of the damage completed, we entered into a standard "hurry up and wait" formation. We all resumed our seats (or makeshift beds, as were available) and proceeded to make idle chatter and guess who would arrive first, our Captain, Fleet Ops, or a Shuttle to carry us on our way.
My guess was for our Cap to make it out first. As part of our idle chatter, myself and the Seahawk fan took guesses as to what his first words would be when we saw him next. We both agreed that it would sound something like, "Grant, how'd you break my ambulance?"
After our chatter died down we dozed off again. A fairly easy task when you're splayed out comfortably in a warm ambulance that's not rattling down the road. About an hour into our motionless wait, I started to wake up wondering why the ground was shaking. Coming to, I noticed a massive red-orange Delta pulling up past us.
Luckily for us, Shuttle ? was kind enough to pick up four errant hitchhikers. We grabbed our gear and climbed up in the back and were greeted by a small group of Air Guard guys on their way to Pegasus. They seemed somewhat amused at our predicament. With the door closed and the rear steps folded up, we were off again, leaving our still running Ambulance II coughing and hacking for Fleet Ops to magic carpet off to the heavy shop.
After a slightly delayed arrival out at the Crash Shack (and having to run a gauntlet of snowball fire both from janos Diesel and Ghandi and our own firefighters), we met up with Lt. Grandpa and the rest of the "Deuce Crew" for our training. We loaded up into three of the Renegades and made our way out to the flight line to finally get a closer look at the Hercs we'd been protecting.
After pulling up, the crew chief from Skier Maintenance had yet to arrive, so we started the exterior tour without him. Instead of me giving boring technical material to you, I'll pass over it and just say that it was informative and interesting. I learned a few things that I didn't know previously and was grateful for Lt. Grandpa's expertise and knowledge in the field.
After the crew chief finally arrived, we continued our walkthrough of the aircraft and flight deck. We were given the chance to play with most of the doors on the aircraft (a significant technical detail to people who need to get in quickly during an emergency) and look over proper flight deck shutdown procedures.
A few things of note regarding the LC-130. First of all, this variant has the ability to land either on wheels or on retractable skis. The skis give it the "L" designation. Next, I'd like to point out that I was surprised by how small the actual aircraft seemed once we were able to get up close to it. Stepping inside, I realized how cramped it really was. With a few pallets of cargo and some people, the aircraft could easily become very tight.
Additionally, I thought it of interest to note how simple the flight deck was. As opposed to many of the newer aircraft that we saw in Denver and even in contrast to the C-17, the cockpit of the snub nosed Herc seemed exceptionally basic, incorporating a combination of modern glass cockpit technology and classic steam gauges.
Lastly, a final quirk that I noted was that each of the props, save one, had a small image stenciled on it. Two of them had an image of a fire breathing dragon while a third had a raven on it. After inquiring with the crew chief, I discovered that this was done to show who had last rebuilt the props and is comparable to an artist signing his painting.
Our tour complete and our thanks given to the Raven Ops crew chief, we piled back into our Renegades and threw snow from our tracks as we returned to the Crash Shack. Our training complete, myself and the rest of the group that I was with piled back up on a Delta of the little known McMurdo Area Rapid Transit system. Our journey back was slightly shorter than our ride out.
As we walked back into the firehouse five hours later as opposed to the three hour tour we were expecting, it didn't take long for our Captain to find me. The following is roughly what was said. I apologize for the use of quotes for paraphrasing.
"Grant!"
"Yo, Cap."
"I knew it was you as soon as I heard it. You broke the ambulance."
"How'd I break it, Cap? I was sleeping on the cot in the back."
"I've already got that figured out. Since you were the fourth one on it, you overloaded it and caused the drive shaft to break."
"That's a bit of a stretch."
"I know, but I'm still blaming you."
I turn to the Seahawk fan.
"I told you I'd get blamed for this."
"That you did."
That pretty much summed up my day off. Not much of a break, but I don't really like too much of one, anyway. Besides, very few fun stories stem from idleness.
Jumping back ahead to today, I have another brief recap.
The bells have actually been ringing today. By the time I finished this, we had three calls for alarms, one medevac, and an in-flight emergency for a Herc with an engine out (not an unusual occurrence). In short, it began to feel like a slow day back home.
I spent much of my day tucked up under both of our engines. I had been given the simple task to rattle can some bright color on the air reservoirs for the brake system as to make them more visible for new drivers as they can be hard to spot.
I, of course, went the extra mile on this mundane task and created a lovely silver and Cat yellow striped pattern.
Overkill? Absolutely. But it gave me something to do that required some creative effort.
As the day progressed, we received word that a flight had actually made it out after several days of being grounded. The Skier was going to Pole and returning with a medevac. This necessitated that an ambulance go out to Pegasus, pick up the patient and waiting medical crew, and return.
Since I was assigned to Ambo 1 for the shift, it fell to me.
After some last minute ambulance juggling (We almost put Scat 1 in service as Ambo 3), Ambo 2 magically reappeared from its trip to the heavy shop with a reattached drive shaft.
With a mild groan on my part, I loaded up and headed out.
It's a long drive out to Pegasus. It's even longer when you're driving alone in a truck that broke down on you just a couple of days before. With the radio tuned to Radio Lolo on Ice 104.5 (Yes, we have a real radio station here.) I slipped, slopped, and rumbled through the rock of the transition and the snow of the ice road.
After finally making it out and meeting up with an arriving LC-130 with my patient and medical team, I loaded up with four and headed back out.
The drive out had been long and fairly dull, though it was kind of a nice break from the routine we can easily fall into here. The ride back, though not exciting, was still fun.
I had an Air Force medical guy ride shotgun with me, and we had a good chat on the way back (especially welcome as Radio Lolo had ended and the canned pop-garbage of the Armed Forces Radio network had returned). It turned out he was from Guam, was stationed in Okinawa, and his missions typically consisted of two week stints to Hawaii.
Maybe I need to join the Air Force.
As the miles started to pass by, I came up on a Delta parked off on the side of the road. At first, I thought they had broken down. As I came closer, I discovered the real reason for their unscheduled stop. Penguins.
There were three Emperor Penguins busy waddling down the road. An unusual sight to say the least, and one certainly worthy of stopping to see. While the Delta was able to stop with its passengers to take a closer look, I couldn't.
While I was sorely tempted to stop and get a better look at the last bit of Antarctic wildlife I hadn't checked off my list yet, I couldn't in good conscience stop for a photo op while a cranky patient and tired medical crew sat in the back. Instead, I just drove by very, very slowly. Sadly, I have no photos to show for it, though the penguins were amusing.
After finally making it back into town, we offloaded the patient and finally went back to the station for the night. At which point, I began typing this up and relating to you my various adventures.
Now, at the concluding of said typing, a nice warm bunk awaits me in the gen-pop bunkroom.
More to come later.
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